Horror Therapy

My daughter was quite sceptical about Horror Therapy being a thing. I think it is a good way to face your fears. I have enjoyed all these horror films over the years, they are possibly not too scary, especially if you have watched them as often as I have. I think the portmanteau horror films are my favourites; Dead of Night, Tales of Terror and From Beyond the Grave. From Beyond the Grave is my most favourite; it stars Peter Cushing as the shop keeper and inspired my poem The Antique Junk shop.

Film Therapy

I love films. I watch loads of films. Films I love I can watch over and over again and not get fed up with. When I was going through a bad time in late 2017 and early 2018 I watched Everest and Into the Wild over and over again, Shawshank Redemption has long been a source of deep comfort for me. The above films have been in my DVD collection for a number of years. I find them therapeutic for various reasons.

Twelve Years in Film

I have been celebrating various anniversaries in 2020. One of the ones I nearly forgot about was that it is twelve years since I made my first home made DVD featuring my home made movies. Recently, because of the Covid19 Lockdown, my life has become a bit more virtual and my interest in making movies and DVDs has returned. The first DVD I made in 2008 was called Teacup Typhoons and features many of the animations that can still be found on the LornaJHart YouTube Channel. Other titles in my homemade DVD collection include Pictures at an Exhibition, ALFA Fantasia, Showcase and Moving Pictures. My latest DVD is called Tales from Three Cities and features videos based on my special visits around London from 2010 to 2020 and trips to Paris in 2008 and New York in 2017.

The big book-to-film reading challenge of 2020

I had quite a few UK holiday plans this year, they are gradually getting cancelled or postponed. In the meantime I have decided to pursue more homely goals; sorting out our house and garden and catching up with my reading and writing, art and craft. My reading list this year centres around twelve book-to-film titles I have been meaning to read for a while. I have already read and reviewed the first three. You can find more of my book reading and reviews at Good Reads.

Eat, Pray, Love by Liz Gilbert

The Martian by Andy Weir

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre

The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien

Dune by Frank Herbert

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

The Light Between Oceans by ML Stedman

The Duchess by Amanda Foreman

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

The Revenant by Michael Punke

Eat, pray, love by Elizabeth Gilbert

I really loved watching the film of this book on Netflix, so I was really looking forward to reading the book itself. Luckily the book did not disappoint, although I found it strangely lighter in many places than the movie. The first part is thirty six chapters on enjoying food in Italy, as well as some story background and an introduction to Liz, I found it quite delicious. The middle section, Pray, is set in an ashram in India and features a lot of reflection on meditation. The final, Indonesian section, Love, seemed less well-defined as the eat and pray sections, it was about finding balance. I found the whole book was a very enlightening read. 

The Martian by Andy Weir

I found this a difficult, but enjoyable read. It is very much like the film, so the story was easy to understand. The difficulty, I found, was the amount of mathematical and scientific language involved. Mars is a planet devoid of life, so anyone attempting to exist there, has a lot precise working out to do. All of this was explained in great detail in Watney's log. Even so, the book was still a lot of fun.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carre

I found this a difficult film to follow and so I was surprised to find the book much easier to understand. Its quite old now, so I found it pleasantly nostalgic. Most of what I got from the book was a series of unusual characters having strange conversations with other odd characters in various interesting locations, in and around London. I think I got a lot out of reading it nevertheless.

Saturday Night at the Movies

One of my big projects for 2019 has been writing reviews for 52 of my favourite 'positive psyche' movies. Two recently purchased 2020 diaries have been upcycled into a movie schedule for the upcoming year; they feature a positive film review for every Saturday of the year, as well as accompanying artwork, lists of positive virtues contained in the films and ideas for book/film tie-ins.

Twelve days on YouTube

ALF's 'Twelve days of Christmas' has been on YouTube since Spring 2014 and has been viewed over a thousand times. The project started in 2009, when Amy and I became obsessed with the song and we developed our pictures for all twelve of the different days. The pictures also exist as a collection of Christmas cards.

A Feminine Embrace with Irish Eileen

Irish Eileen was a beautiful girl I met at college, long before I acquired an Irish name myself. When coming up with ideas on how to create a video to go with my song two complementary ideas came to my mind. The first was my poem 'A feminine embrace' and the second was a set of pictures Amy  had been working on featuring various very glamourous looking young ladies. Some of this work on the project can be seen below.

Masks

The 'Masks' project began with my painting 'Half Mask'. I then painted two accompanying paintings for it, 'Full Mask' and 'Unmasked'. After this I came up with 'Mask' and then three more variations on the theme. I put my mask pictures on a montage with my other portraits, set to an intense song I wrote called 'Inside and Out'. You can find my Masks montage and its accompanying song here on YouTube.

Stargazing on SoundCloud

It is ten years, this August, since I first delved into Social Media, when I uploaded my animation Ballet Class onto YouTube. As a sort of celebration, I have joined SoundCloud and uploaded an old favourite song I have written, Stargazing, you can find it here. I don't know if I will upload any more, I will see how it goes. You can find our slide show of the song, featuring Amy's childhood Planet project pictures, here.

The Antique Junk Shop

        

I wrote this poem as a teenager, it was somewhat inspired by 'From beyond the grave' an old Amicus portmanteau horror movie starring Peter Cushing. I drew the old man who runs the shop and owns the cat based on Peter Cushing. You can find the poem on my WattPad adolescent poetry page and as a small montage movie on YouTube.

The Planets

Like 'On the Ice', 'The Planets' video is now available on both YouTube and Vimeo. Amy has drawn many pictures of the planets, we wrote Planet Renga together and I wrote the song Stargazing about a sleepless night spent staring at the stars.

On the ice

When I was at a book supplier's day a few years ago, as part of my library work, I was introduced to the concept of 'thinking like a dandelion', regarding approaches to the internet and social media. With this in mind I have tried to 'spread myself' about a bit both in the virtual and the real world. Part of this approach has meant some of my videos are on YouTube and Vimeo. I wanted to share my 'On the Ice' video from Vimeo, but YouTube won out again. You can find my Vimeo videos here.

Madeleine

I fell in love with Edgar Allan Poe after listening to the BBC radio drama production of 'The Fall of the House of Usher' in the 1980s. Although Poe's stories were written nearly two hundred years ago I still find them fresh and meaningful, written in a first person narrative that is very relatable, even when we are in the mind of a murderer. I was working on Madeleine, my musical based on the Fall of the House of Usher, while visiting my boyfriend in Ramsgate and the house I was thinking of was Charles Dickens' 'Bleak House' in Broadstairs. I have attempted to get it performed in the past; at the moment it exists as an eight minute musical on YouTube.

This is my small collection of Poe memorabilia that I really enjoy reading, watching and listening to, including an edition of Tales of Mystery and Imagination that was published over one hundred years ago.

At an Exhibition

This is an edited montage created from the 'Pictures at an exhibition' connecting scenes. 'Pictures at an exhibition' is a short film that lasts for forty minutes. It includes me playing the piano (Gnossienne 1 by Satie), Amy's drawings and a little girl who visits three mysterious rooms, one blue, one green and one red. Also featured in the film are our songs and stories, Stargazing, The Legend of the Dream Box, Gone Fishing, Phoenix and For What I Am. You can find the whole film here on Vimeo.

Green Dreamer

In the early 1990s I spent some time working on ideas for musicals. the one I spent the most time on was 'Madeleine' which was based on 'The Fall of the House of Usher' by Edgar Allan Poe. I also spent a lot of time working on 'Green Dreamer' which is an environmental musical set in the fictional town of Shadowcliff. Shdowcliff is inspired by the seaside town of Ramsgate, Kent. I got to know Ramsgate really well in the 1990s as I used to visit my boyfriend there practically every weekend.

Poe and Poetry on YouTube

I find there are wonderful short films and animation on YouTube produced by independent film makers and also gems from earlier in the twentieth century. I continue to use my AmiloFinn channel to create playlists of these works of art. As well as my 'At the piano' playlist you might also enjoy 'Poe's Tales'  and 'Illustrated Poems'.

'Poe's Tales' includes modern animations of Annabel Lee, Masque of the red death, The oval portrait and Eldorado and modern short films of Ligeia, The tell tale heart, The black cat and the Raven. There are also older films such as Vincent Price reading 'The pit and the pendulum' and a 1928 silent film version of 'The Fall of the house of Usher'.

Among the wonderful items collected in the 'Illustrated Poems' playlist are

Night by William Blake
Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti
The Listeners by Walter de la Mare
The stolen child by WB Yeats
The Hollow Men by TS Eliot
Crow by Ted Hughes
Death and Co by Sylvia Plath

You can find the poetry play list here

There's something about Edgar ...

I thought I might never get to see the animated version of 'The Fall of the House of Usher' by Edgar Allan Poe narrated by Christopher Lee and directed by Raul Garcia. I was revisiting the very tempting trailer on YouTube (see above) when, after reading a few of the comments, I noticed that it has actually been released. It was released in October 2015 and is one of the animated films featured in an animated Poe movie anthology called 'Extraordinary Tales'. After hunting around a bit I found an online version and have now seen the entire film.

Extraordinary Tales by Raul Garcia : a film review

Edgar Allan Poe has long been one of my favourite authors, if not my absolute favourite, and this animated film, written and directed by Raul Garcia, I feel is a wonderful homage to him and his stories. The beginning and connecting sequences of the portmanteau film feature Poe in the form of a raven who visits a graveyard full of feminine statues and speaks to death in the form of a woman. The first conversation between them leads neatly into the first of Poe's tales.

The Fall of the House of Usher

Christopher Lee's narration is mesmerising in this and perfectly complements the stylishly drawn characters. Roderick and Madeline are as they should be; angular, striking and really creepy. The narrator, Roderick's boyhood friend, is rotund and spooked out by what has become of his childhood companion and the house he remembers as being magical. In Poe's tale it is not only Madeline who is ill, Roderick and the house are also falling apart at the seams and I think this is portrayed very well.

A conversation about redemption and justice leads to the second of Poe's tales.

The Tell Tale Heart

This story is told in striking black and white pictures, with a touch of red here and there. I have heard this story told many times. My English teacher read it out in an O'level lesson and managed to scare the life out of a bunch of rowdy teenagers. Here it is told by Bela Lugosi, who does a good job on it. The stark pictures are good company for the chilling story of a man who only kills because he doesn't like the look of the old man with the 'vulture eye'. I love that Bela Lugosi  made it into the film, he was born in the same century as Edgar Allan Poe, so it feels like an extra connection there.

After a talk about cheating death we come to the film's centrepiece.

The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar

I find this is a really creepy story even by Poe's standards. It is about a man hypnotised into an uncertain state, before dying, and hovering on the brink, suspended between life and death. It is another starkly illustrated and animated piece, but this time there is colour and a satisfying comic book or graphic novel feel about the short film. The doctor looks suspiciously like Vincent Price and it is narrated by Julian Sands, which ticks another couple of vintage horror boxes quite nicely.

The next story, we are told, is about a man's contemplation of unknown torments.

The Pit and the Pendulum

It took me a while to get into and appreciate this story and this animation also took me a little more time to get to grips with. The animation is modern and realistic, smooth and appealing. It is voiced by the director Guilermo del Toro, the story is about the Spanish Inquisition, so I think this was a very thoughtful choice. Good narration, I feel, is so vital in this, we see that horrible things might happen, but what is going on in the mind of the prisoner is where the true horror lies. I think I need to read this story again to get all I can out of it.

Having really enjoyed the first four stories, I was sure the fifth one would be just as satisfying.

The Masque of the Red Death

There is very little speaking in this piece, so the amazing music, which has been running throughout the film, really comes to the fore. The paintings in this story are a kind of oily water colour, the characters look similar to the illustrations drawn by Harry Clarke, a 20th century illustrator famous for illustrating Poe. This is another touch that I feel makes this film such a treat, especially for big Poe fans like myself. I have read this story several times, and was eager to see how the animation would take on the many coloured rooms of Prince Prospero's palace. They were done exquisitely, each with their own decadent character. I wouldn't say any of these short films were too scary, but I did find this film a little scarier than the others.

At the end of the film we are left to ponder the legacy of Edgar Allan Poe, which I think is pretty great. Gorgeous animation, five Poe stories, a little of Poe's poetry, the portmanteau horror film format; exquisite music, illustration and narration; this film combines so many of my favourite things, I can't help but love it.

Flight of the Phoenix Fairy

While I was demoing my song 'Phoenix' I was imagining the sort of journey video that could accompany it. I had always been fascinated by animation and with the advent of home computers, inspired by a visit to the Museum of Childhood and becoming more skilled with the use of Paint Shop Pro, Gif Animator and Movie Maker, I was very pleased to put together my own small animated films. 'Flight of the Phoenix Fairy' is one of my most elaborate animations and is featured in the larger ALF Creations film 'Pictures at an Exhibition'.

Making friends with YouTube

I've been wondering what to do about my old YouTube account for a while, I've been adding videos to it, on and off, since 2008. It's been a bit hit and miss over the years, but I thought, on the whole, it's worth keeping. My teenage daughter's very keen on YouTube, too keen probably, but I felt there is more I could be getting out of the service so I decided to adopt a new strategy.

I had a few videos I wanted to upload, a couple of old animations, a more recent montage of old ALF pictures and an idea for a new video. I uploaded my old videos and thought I would have a go at the new idea.

The new idea is The Antique Junk Shop, which is a montage of new pictures I have drawn, inspired by one of my poems and accompanied by one of my songs. The new video has been created using the new Movie Maker, I preferred the old one, but have a new computer, so now have the new Movie Maker as well, I'm still quite pleased with the result. After uploading my videos, I thought more deeply about what to do.

My old YouTube account has always been for uploading my 'ALF Pictures' videos, it's its raison d'etre, but I wanted somewhere I could go to search what other people are doing and keep track of that rather than somewhere I go to upload my own efforts. So I came up with the idea of having two accounts.

My old account, LornaJHart, is still for uploading my videos, when I feel the need, I think of it as my 'experimental' account. My new accout, Amilo Finn, is where I am mostly going to collect playlists of other people's videos that I find inspiring, I think of it as my 'inspirational' account. To keep them linked AmiloFinn has subscribed to LornaJHart and vice versa.

While I was at it I also added The Antique Junk Shop to my Vimeo channel. The LornaJHart channel and my Vimeo channel are listed on the side links of my blog and the new AmiloFinn YouTube channel is here. I have 'fave ' playlists on both my YouTube accounts which I hope people will enjoy.

Of Dragons and Fairies

My daughter is now a sophisticated teenager and her child-like drawings are a thing of her past. I was going through her old pictures a little while ago and came across a project that we had left uncompleted. We have now completed it, it is called 'Of Dragon and Fairies' and I think of it as the last of the ALF childhood creations that I have been working on with Amy since she came up with 'The Legend of the Dream Box' in 2005.

The accompanying song by me is called 'The Feeling's Always There' and was recorded by associates of the Armada Singing Group based in Feltham.